


la peste (the plague)

by stillscape



Series: tumblr prompts collection [10]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: Betty surveyed her classmates and their coffee, and felt superior. Her own travel mug bore the dents and scars from two years of hard use. It was imperfect; so was she.But Jughead.(No discussion of any illness or actual plagues. The title is borrowed from Albert Camus, with my apologies.)
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: tumblr prompts collection [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/824430
Comments: 35
Kudos: 81
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	la peste (the plague)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raptorlily (raptorlilian)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raptorlilian/gifts).



> Written as part of raptorlily/hellodinoflower's drabble challenge on Tumblr. Because I'm me, I had to do all 21 drabbles as part of the same universe.

Everyone else came armed with paper Starbucks cups or brand-new, vacuum-sealed travel mugs papered in individualized layers of nearly-identical stickers.

Betty surveyed her classmates and their coffee, and felt superior. Her own travel mug bore the dents and scars from two years of hard use. It was imperfect; so was she. 

But Jughead. 

_ Jughead  _ strolled up to the seminar table every morning with an honest-to-god ceramic diner mug in hand. No lid. An affectation, surely. Coffee stains on his cuffs, his cuticles, his xeroxed readings; Jughead gestured when he spoke. 

Long fingers lifted the mug to his lips. 

Betty watched. 

  
  
  
  


“Elizabeth. Welcome to our  _ salon _ .” 

He  _ would  _ go out of his way to live in a place like this. Victorianish, or maybe Gothic Lite. 

“Bret.” 

She held out her offering, the nicest dry Riesling at a grad student’s price point; he barely bothered to disguise a scoff as he took it, waving her toward the sitting area. She tried not to flush at the apparent faux pas—not that she cared what Bret thought of her taste in alcohol. 

She chose to sit on the velvet settee, currently half-occupied by Jughead Jones, who lifted his eyebrows as she lowered herself down. 

  
  
  


Green absinthe remnants swirled through champagne that had long since gone flat. 

Jughead crashed against the settee’s back, his head landing millimeters from her shoulder. “No surprise Hemingway called it a Death in the Afternoon.” 

Tonight his fingers curled around a coupe glass, same as hers, and not the diner mug she’d half expected.

“You drunk, Jones?” 

“Not enough to handle this level of pretension.” Jughead nodded up at the ornate chandelier; Betty leaned back to look. 

“We have always lived in the castle,” she intoned. 

The reference wasn’t entirely apt; she knew that. Still, Jughead’s eyes flashed with admiration. 

* * *

After the “salon,” Jughead began sitting next to Betty during seminars. Before, he looked her in the eye. Now, they were close enough to touch. Now  _ her  _ cuffs,  _ her  _ xeroxed readings, occasionally bore flecks of coffee spray. Did she mind? She didn’t say. 

The first day snow fell, their classroom’s heat went into overdrive. Betty was already seated, sans cardigan, when Jughead plunked his mug down next to hers. He removed his sherpa, his sweater, his flannel. 

When he scooted his chair to the table, the hairs of his bare forearm brushed against the delicate skin of hers. 

One shiver. 

  
  
  


Morbid curiosity compelled him to attend Bret’s second “salon.” Before, he wouldn’t have pegged Betty as the morbid type, but she must’ve had a streak too, because she already occupied the velvet settee. 

She held a goddamn goblet. Her eyebrow arched. Invitingly? Subtext had never been his strong point. He collapsed on the other cushion anyway.

“I have good news and bad news,” Betty whispered. “The good news is, absinthe’s off the menu.”

“Thank god. The bad news?”

Green eyes twinkled. “Bret says we’re having a literal Bacchanalia.” 

“Not funny, Cooper.”

Bret, appearing from the shadows, handed Jughead a goblet. 

  
  
  
  
  


Bret scoffed over the seminar table. “It’s a heavy-handed rewrite of the scary story we all read in the dark. Cheap scare when we were eight; cheap scare now.” 

Jughead sensed, rather than saw, Betty’s lips tighten. They  _ all  _ saw her sit up, fold her arms on the table, lean her weight into her elbows. 

A thrill ran down his spine. 

After class, he found Betty outside, pacing in the area reserved for smokers. She didn’t smoke.

“So, Bret’s gonna need a ribbon to keep his own head on now.” 

Betty looked up. Huffed a breath. “It resonates.” 

He nodded.

* * *

Since Betty’s car predated her birth, its breakdown was inevitable. She’d just hoped it could hold on until the semester ended, when she didn’t have places to be and undergrads to teach. 

No such luck. After slamming down the hood and wiping her hands of grease, she retrieved her phone and mass-emailed her cohort.  _ Can anyone take my 10:00 section?  _

Jughead responded within seconds. Had he been sitting by his computer, waiting for her to ask for a favor? 

_ Where are you? _

A miniskirt wasn’t ideal attire for riding a motorcycle, but he got her there five minutes early.

  
  
  
  


“How do we keep ending up here, Cooper?”

“Curiosity.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, as they say.” 

“You’re just as curious as I am.” She took a sip of tonight’s libations—whiskey and soda—and raised her eyebrows. “So I guess we’re both dead.” 

“Guilty as charged.” Jughead swallowed, though he hadn’t taken a drink. 

They watched Donna, who was watching Bret, who was fencing an invisible opponent. 

Without conscious thought, Betty said, “I dare you to get up and leave.” 

Jughead shot her a puzzled look. When he didn’t move, she stood up herself...and wobbled. 

“Give me your keys,” he said. 

  
  
  
  


She wasn’t that drunk, but it was nice to be driven home and helped inside. It was nice to have someone unlock the door for her, help her to the couch, fetch her water. 

“You okay now?” Jughead asked, casting a glance around the apartment she shared with a girl she rarely saw or spoke to. “Do you need…” 

“A blanket. I’m cold.” There was supposed to be one on the couch. It was missing.  _ Goddamnit, Ethel _ , she thought. 

Jughead looked around again. 

“My bedroom. There’s a throw.” 

He fetched that too. Betty patted the space next to her. “Sit.” 

* * *

“Should I just pick you up this time?” 

The question, asked casually, caused Jughead’s heart to leap right into his throat. He swallowed it back down, and rubbed his finger along the edge of his empty mug. He needed a bigger mug. He needed a mug with a goddamn lid. He still liked this mug. 

He had not been certain, until this moment, that Betty liked him in any sense of the word. Tolerated him, yes. But there was a difference. 

“Pick me up this time?” he echoed. “There’s a ‘this time’?” 

Her smile was small, sly. “Why stop now?” 

  
  
  
  
  


Absinthe again. A bacchanalia, again. The woods at midnight. That was new. 

The world swirled around him. Betty, sober, a focal point as they walked. She’d tipped most of her drink into a potted plant. 

“We’re lost, Betty.” 

If he only drank during Bret’s salons—and that  _ was _ the only time he drank—he was not his father.

“We’re not lost,” Betty insisted. “We’re…” 

They crashed through another few yards of woods and stumbled into a clearing. A small pond, ice forming at its edges. 

“Okay. We might be lost.” 

He found a log, brushed it clean of snow. They sat together.

  
  


“What were you like before?” 

“Before?” 

“Before grad school. Or college. Whatever.” 

He shrugged. “This. Angrier, maybe. You?” 

“This,” she sighed. “More... concerned with living up to expectations.” 

An expectation now hung between them. He could see it: the fog of her breath in the crystal-clear air. Diversion would be easy… 

“My real name’s Forsythe Pendleton Jones III. One’s a recluse. Two’s a gang leader  _ and  _ the town sheriff. Neither graduated high school.” 

“And Three’s getting a PhD?” 

“Shoved me off to boarding school when I was sixteen. It stuck.” 

For the first time, he realized: the shoving was love.

* * *

“I can’t believe you came.” 

Jughead swallowed his latest mouthful of nachos. “I can’t believe you invited me. Couldn’t face your roommate’s birthday alone?” 

Ethel continued to serenade the bar with a decidedly unblessed rendition of “Africa.” 

“Can you blame me?” 

“Not one bit.” Jughead looked very much like he wanted to ask Betty why she’d invited him, of all people, but he did not. That was good. She wasn’t sure she knew. 

The song ended, but howls continued echoing in Betty’s ears. 

Ethel, flush with adrenaline, confidence, and daiquiris, approached their booth. “Betty!” she cried. “You brought your… boyfriend?” 

  
  
  
  
  


“Take a left,” Jughead ordered; Betty turned right instead. Ignoring his gesticulations, she glanced in the rearview mirror at her rather tipsy roommate. 

“I’m going to take you home first, okay?” 

Ethel wasn’t so drunk she needed supervision—or at least, Betty thought not. Then Ethel practically face-planted in the parking lot. Betty took one arm, Jughead took the other, and together, they got her inside. 

“So,” she heard Ethel say, while she fetched water. “You’re not Betty’s boyfriend?” 

In the living room, she found Ethel’s hand on Jughead’s thigh, and absolute terror on Jughead’s face.

His eyes flicked to Betty’s. 

  
  
  
  
  


She drove him home in silence, her mind racing even faster than her usual typing speed. 

_ How do I feel _ ? No.  _ Why do I feel like I need to evaluate how I feel?  _ No.  _ Why do I feel like I feel like—  _

She took a deep breath. 

Fuck, he smelled good. No particular identifiable scent; just, good. 

_ Why did it take Ethel hitting on Jughead to make me feel like I feel like—  _

“Stop staring at me,” she snapped, harsher than intended. 

“Sorry.” 

He did not stop. 

A spot on her neck, just under the ear. It burned. His lips— 

* * *

He’d promised himself he’d be in and out in five. No lingering. No distractions. He knew what the job market was like. Head down, work hard, get some good conferences and publications under his belt. 

Publications. Not someone else’s fingers. But then, he had never bargained on the existence of one Betty Cooper. 

She breathed in his ear; she tugged lightly at his waistband. “Off.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Do what I say, Jug.” 

He was enough of a smartass to start thinking of a line about enthusiastic verbal consent. Betty was smart enough not to let him finish it. 

She kissed  _ hard _ . 

  
  
  
  


He loved her look. For months, now, he had been childishly enamored. Her sweaters, her jeans, her practical footwear: a costume, sneakily diverting attention from her slim, strong body. 

(Her ponytail.) 

She wore makeup, never too much; she tried, never too hard. 

(She was smarter than all the rest of them put together.) 

At that point, Jughead realized he was bordering on creepiness, and stopped fantasizing as best he could. 

Bret scoffed behind her back, once. “Vanilla.” 

Now, with her clothes off, her ponytail down, and her body pinning him to his own mattress, he knew: she was anything but. 

  
  
  
  


Betty’s fingers traced abstract patterns on his bare chest. “You know what they’ll say.” 

“What?” 

“That we only hooked up because we’re the last two people in the program who hadn’t fucked anyone else in the program yet.” 

“How do you know I haven’t?” 

She pushed away just far enough to look him in the eye. “I guess I don’t. Have you?” 

“No. Have you?” 

“No.” 

He pulled her close again, and his heart pounded faster as he murmured into her hair. “I don’t really do casual hook-ups.” 

“No?” Betty snuggled in tighter. “I didn’t think so.” 

“Do you?” 

“No.” 

* * *

Multiple inches of snow fell during Bret’s final bacchanalia of the semester, and their entire cohort found itself stranded. 

Jughead raised his goblet. “Having a mansion pays off for once.” 

Though there were seemingly countless bedrooms, Bret’s mansion had only two beds. 

“Mine’s a king,” he said loftily. “Anyone is welcome to share it with me. The rest of you can fight over the guest room, the chaise lounges, et cetera.” 

“What,” Jughead deadpanned, “no air mattress?” 

“ _ Anyone _ is welcome to share with me,” Bret repeated, a strange significance to his voice. 

Betty realized: he had eyes only for Jughead. 

  
  
  
  
  


“I suppose they’d all figured out we were sleeping together anyway,” Betty said, after they’d locked themselves in the guest bedroom. Revealing their relationship seemed a small price to pay for an actual bed with actual blankets. 

Jughead, who had been taking off his boots, seemed to hesitate. 

“What?” 

“Is that what this is?”

“We  _ are _ sleeping together, Jug.” Several nights a week, much to Ethel’s chagrin. More than once, Betty had literally bitten her tongue to stop herself from boasting about how good it was. 

“Is that  _ all  _ this is?” 

“Oh, my god. No.” 

The guest room bed squeaked. 

  
  
  
  
  


Despite the release, Betty couldn’t sleep. Bret’s mansion unnerved her. She tossed and turned, trying not to wake Jughead. 

“You too, huh?” he said. 

“It’s  _ creepy _ in here. I feel like—” 

“There’s a monster under the bed?” He sat up. “Only one thing to do about that.” 

The boxes they found—labeled  _ Chipping— _ weren’t even taped shut. 

“Chipping?” Betty wondered aloud. “Wasn’t he that Yale professor who—” 

“Defenestrated himself in the middle of a lecture,” Jughead said grimly. 

“Bret’s undergrad is from Yale.”

“That it is.” 

Betty took Jughead’s hand as their eyes met. 

“We have to look,” he said. 

She nodded. 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Today I learned that Ao3 counts those lines as words. Who knew? 
> 
> Thanks to Raptor for setting up the drabble challenge! It was fun.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, when you have the time 💜


End file.
